About Schmidt (2002)

     About Schmidt (2002) [D:Alexander Payne. Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis] Schmidt (Nicholson) retires from a life of dutiful service to his family, earning a comfortable living as a minor insurance executive. His wife has persuaded him to buy a large RV so that they can go travelling. But the fact is that Schmidt hasn’t any interests outside of his work; he’s repressed everything he really cared about to give his family a good living. A commercial asking people to foster an orphan in Africa attracts his attention and he signs up. Returning from the post office to mail a letter to Ngudu, the African boy whom he’s adopted at the rate of $22 a month, he finds his wife dead of a stroke, the vacuum cleaner still whining away. After the funeral, and a couple of weeks or so of stunned grief, he finds love-letters to his wife from their best friend. This is the first of several unwelcome discoveries. He decides to drive the RV to Colorado to visit his daughter and persuade her to back out of marrying a gormless but friendly waterbed salesman.
     The trip takes a couple of weeks. He detours to visit his hometown and places he’s always wanted to see. He continues to write letters to Ngudu, in which he puts a brave face on his disappointments. His future in-laws are an odd collection of free spirits and failures. At the wedding, he delivers the kind of speech he’s expected to make. He returns home believing he’s a failure: he hasn’t made a difference in anyone’s life. But a letter from Ngudu’s caregiver at the orphanage lifts his spirits. Because of his $22 a month, Ngudu will have a better future.
     The road trip as voyage of discovery is a common trope, so is this one worth watching? Yes, if you don’t mind seeing a man who hasn’t done much with his life, and has developed a habit of repressing his true self and living the roles his family and society expect of him. I don’t know the book that inspired this movie, but I suspect it makes rather harsher judgments about the effects of American self-effacement than this movies does. The movie doesn’t really know how to deal with Schmidt. Should his predicament be played for laughs? Yes. Should it adopt a sentimental tone to soften Schmidt’s rage? Yes. Should it show a man developing wisdom late, but no too late, in life? Yes. Should it develop a critique of the affluent life? Yes. And so on.
     The result of this indecision about what to do with the script is a collection of vignettes of varying quality, intensity, and tone, each of which has its own charm and effect, but which don’t come together into a coherent whole. This is a movie that is less than the sum of its parts. Entertaining, but not involving. **